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Watch: "Kids Aren't Cars"

Submitted by dfoley on Thu, 2011-03-10 10:46

In the genre of documentaries revealing the problems with public education, "Kids Aren't Cars" focuses on helping us understand how schools are modeled after a factory system and what we need to do to change them. Understandably, treating kids as if they are a product to be manufactured has had detrimental effects on children going through the system and the overall level of education in America. The folks who put the video together argue for more competition and more freedom in education as important first steps toward reforming the education system.

"A half mile below the ground at Prudhoe Bay, above the vast oil field that helped trigger construction of the trans-Alaska pipeline, a drill rig has tapped what researchers think could be the next big energy source."

The question policymakers should be asking is how aggressive do policies need to be in the near term. Society needs to weigh a number of alternatives besides just stabilizing concentrations at 550 ppm.

"A half mile below the ground at Prudhoe Bay, above the vast oil field that helped trigger construction of the trans-Alaska pipeline, a drill rig has tapped what might one day be the next big energy source."

According to present scientific calculations, environmental damage from global warming at current rates of carbon dioxide emissions will be extensive, especially in the latter half of this century and throughout the next few centuries. Because the effects would take so long to appear, there is great uncertainty about their extent.

In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Alan Blinder listed numerous alleged benefits of a phased-in carbon tax. ... A more balanced assessment shows that a carbon tax presents very real dangers, even if we rely on the same economic analysis that so enthralled Blinder.

A House-passed bill that targets climate change through a cap-and-trade system of pollution credits would slow the nation's economic growth slightly over the next few decades and would create 'significant' job losses ...

As Congress considers far-reaching federal climate-change legislation, there has been far too little discussion on the economic costs such policies would impose at the state, local and household levels.

"The Arctic will retain its power to amaze for a long time. Yet it is now changing beyond the usual regional and annual variations in sea-ice formation, glacier melt and so forth. The Arctic is clearly melting. Its floating ice cap is shrinking and thinning and its glaciers are retreating. By the end of this century, maybe much sooner, there will be frequent Arctic summers with almost no sea...

But the economic reality is that PHEVs are not ready for primetime, and the best indicator for when they will be is when the government stops using taxpayer dollars to subsidize their production and consumption.

One such favourite claim states that climate change will lead to the rapid spread of vector-borne diseases, such as malaria, yellow fever and dengue, to new areas. This claim, however, slithers through scientific fact.

"Late for a party? Miss a meeting? Forget to pay your rent? Blame climate change; everyone else is doing it. From an increase in severe acne to all societal collapses since the beginning of time, just about everything gone wrong in the world today can be attributed to climate change. Here’s a list of 100 storylines blaming climate change as the problem."

The optimal way to deal with potential climate change is not to embark on a futile attempt to prevent it but to promote growth and prosperity so that people will have the resources to deal with the normal set of natural disasters.

Will government solutions to global warming be worse than global warming itself? Remember that man-made global warming is a negative externality that occurs when burning fossil fuels release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

A lot of businesses, convinced that the federal government will somehow raise the price of using fossil fuels, are investing in developing green technologies because they believe that the market for them is bound to grow.

Many people often assume that one of the negative impacts of climate change will be a decrease in crop production. In this piece, however, Ron Bailey cites a few studies suggesting that increased temperatures could actually increase production.

"When Energy Secretary Stephen Chu announced a half-billion dollars in federal stimulus loans to solar panel maker Solyndra, he called the move part of an aggressive effort to put more Americans to work and end U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
But nearly two years to the day later, the bankrupt Solyndra needs help just to keep it own electricity service from being shut off."

The Lancet report details at length how warmer temperatures will lead to so-called tropical diseases such as malaria moving northwards and to higher altitudes. But this ignores the vast range of human and ecological factors that surround disease.

An open question: is global warming worse than what governments might try to do about it? Ronald Bailey reviews the Stern Report, which makes an economic argument in favor of immediate, extraordinary action to stop climate change.

The real costs Americans will face if they are to meet President Bush's recently stated goal of stopping the growth of the U.S.'s greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. He also explains why none of the policies proposed by the three presidential candidates are economically feasible.

"This book reports on a completely revised version of earlier models developed by the author and collaborators to understand the economic and environmental dynamics of alternative approaches to slowing global warming."

The Review’s unambiguous conclusions about the need for extreme immediate action will not survive the substitution of assumptions that are consistent with today’s marketplace real interest rates and savings rates.

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects that temperatures in the major grain-growing areas of North America will rise by 3–4 °C by 2100. Such abrupt changes will create major challenges, significantly altering the area suitable for wheat."

The welfare theory is developed in the context of three empirical studies on the economics of global climate change. I argue that the theoretical foundations of intergenerational welfare economics are still unsettled even in deterministic models.

While this study does find the possibility of agricultural losses under models that assume the largest temperature increases, it generally concludes that the world will be able to continue feeding itself over the next century, despite global warming.

"The only consensus over the threat of climate change that seems to exist these days is that there is no consensus. The much-heralded 2007 United Nations report on greenhouse gas emissions has served as a catalyst for lawmakers to burden traditional energy sources with regulations in favor of so-called clean energy."

"The evidence for global warming's being relatively benign is overwhelming. Historical data show that climate has always fluctuated but that warmer climates were better for plants and animals, including humans; statistics demonstrate that warm weather and hot climates reduce mortality and morbidity...."

Climate change is mainly projected to add to existing problems, rather than create new ones. Of particular significance are four categories of hazards to human health and safety which have frequently been cited as major reasons for controlling greenhouse gas emissions.

Despite using many good references, the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change is selective and its conclusion flawed. Its fear-mongering arguments have been sensationalized, which is ultimately only likely to make the world worse off.

Since energy is the lifeblood of the American economy, 85 percent of which comes from CO2-emitting fossil fuels, the Waxman-Markey bill represents an extraordinary level of economic interference by the federal government.

In this essay, I begin with a review of the estimates of the total economic effects of climate change. I then focus on marginal cost estimates, which are especially important for economists thinking about policy design.

"The economics of climate change uses economic theory and computer models to study the interactions among government policies, the climate system, and the economy. In this article, I survey the field and some of its major controversies."

The year 2005 brought record numbers of hurricanes and storm damages to the United States. Was this a foretaste of increasingly destructive hurricanes in an era of global warming? This study examines the economic impacts of U.S. hurricanes.

"[N]ew research suggests that climate warming will not be as harmful as we once thought it might be. Climate scientists have reduced the magnitude of predicted warming, suggesting milder future climate scenarios."

The shadow price of carbon is an important indicator of the global incremental damage done by emitting greenhouse gases today. Cost-benefit analysis would set the optimal amount of greenhouse-gas-emission reduction.

In this report, a team of authors led by Dale Jorgenson of Harvard University developed an integrated assessment of the potential impacts of climate change on the U.S. market economy through the year 2100.

This analysis provides an excellent overview of a variety of issues surrounding climate change and concludes the best way for the world to "combat" climate change is, "...by reducing present-day vulnerabilities to climate-sensitive problems that could be exacerbated by climate change rather than through overly aggressive GHG reductions.

A panel of experts recently took on these questions in an Oxford-style debate. The motion for the Jan. 13 debate, part of the Intelligence Squared U.S. series, was: 'Major Reductions in Carbon Emissions Are Not Worth the Money.'

Economist Margo Thorning discusses the likely consequences of Minnesota's proposed Climate Mitigation Action Plan on employment, household income, and new investments in the state. She also talks about the likely economic and environmental effects of bills currently before Congress, including the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act.

In two of his recent op-eds for the New York Times, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman has challenged critics of the government's intentions to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, and he has even specifically endorsed the pending Waxman-Markey bill which includes a 'cap-and-trade' program.

Economist Frank Ackerman argues that the standard economic models used to calculate the global cost of protection, versus the cost of destruction of the planet, focus on an incomplete cost-benefit analysis.

In this clip, Al Gore ... [compares] skeptics of climate change to racists during the Civil Rights Movement. Gore was sitting down for an interview with Alex Bogusky of the Climate Reality Project, and suggested that young people today whose parents do not believe in climate change are asking the same questions now that race-conscious young people in the 60s asked their parents.

Few topics generate more heat than global warming and possible policy solutions to increases in the average global temperatures. Indeed, the options bandied about range from doing nothing to applying planet-wide restrictions on all aspects of energy consumption and technology.

This video features a debate on fossil fuels and their effect on the environment. Patrick Michaels argues that implementing a carbon tax in order to save the environment would be deadly, but his discussion partners disagree.

"Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis explains the truth about global warming in his film Policy Peril: Why Global Warming Policies Are More Dangerous Than Global Warming Itself. The movie includes cameos from Heritage’s Ben Lieberman and David Kreuzter and is full of talking points to debunk the common catastrophic global warming stories you always hear."

Popularly known as the Waxman-Markey bill, this document sought "To create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, reduce global warming pollution and transition to a clean energy economy." Highly contentious, the bill failed to pass before the end of the 111th Congress.

In order to create a clean energy economy that will increase our Nation's prosperity, promote energy security, protect the interests of taxpayers, and safeguard the health of our environment, the Federal Government must lead by example.

We are back here at Georgetown today because global climate change clearly is one of the most important of those challenges and also one of the most complex, crossing the disciplines of environmental science, economics ... and global diplomacy...

Produced by the English Parliament, this piece of climate change legislation seeks, among other things, "to set a target for the year 2050 for the reduction of targeted greenhouse gas emissions; to provide for a system of carbon budgeting; to establish a Committee on Climate Change; [and] to confer powers to establish trading schemes for the purpose of limiting greenhouse gas emissions or encouraging activities that reduce such emissions or remove greenhouse gas from the atmosphere...."

I see this Conference helping to accelerate the IPCC's agenda as it searches for understanding of some very critical questions, broadening the dialog by exploring the link between scientific research and economic analysis in the study of global change.

The recommendations that this distinguished organization makes can have a profound effect on the world's environmental and economic policy. By being here today, I hope to underscore my country's and my own personal concern about your work, about environmental stewardship, and to reaffirm our commitment to finding responsible solutions. It's both an honor and a pleasure to be the first American President to speak to this organization, as its work takes shape.

Thank you for your letter of March 6, 2001, asking for the Administration's views on global climate change, in particular the Kyoto Protocol and efforts to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act.

When the savings of new, more energy efficient technologies exceed the costs of adopting those technologies, markets have the incentive to adopt them. Indeed the difference between the savings and the costs is the measure of the increased value the economy generates.

The main activity of the IPCC is to provide at regular intervals Assessment Reports of the state of knowledge on climate change. The latest one is "Climate Change 2007", the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.

"The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These amount to an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012."

An overview of issues related to climate change, focusing primarily on its economic aspects. The study draws from published sources to summarize the state of climate science and provide a framework for addressing climate change as an economic problem.

The aim [of this document] is to give a new as yet unnamed U.N. body the power to directly intervene in the financial, economic, tax and environmental affairs of all the nations that sign the Copenhagen treaty.

Lawson argues that global warming is happening, but that the science is far from settled. He opposes the scientific consensus as summarized by the IPCC. He also argues that warming will bring both benefits and negative consequences...

The workshop, summarized in this volume, comprised three dimensions: policy, analysis, and economics. Discussions along these dimensions were meant to lead to constructive identification of gaps and opportunities.

"Global climate change is one of the most important issues humanity faces today. This book assesses the sensible, senseless and biased proposals for averting the potentially disastrous consequences of global warming, allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions on switching to more sustainable energy provision."

Dr. Roy Spencer observes that our obsession with global warming has only clouded the issue. Forsaking blindingly technical statistics and doomsday scenarios, Dr. Spencer explains in simple terms how the climate system really works, why man’s role in global warming is more myth than science, and how the global warming hype has corrupted Washington and the scientific community.

Lomborg presents us with a second generation of thinking on global warming that believes panic is neither warranted nor a constructive place from which to deal with any of humanity's problems, not just global warming.

Global warming is debated largely in environmental terms. The contributions in this book focus instead on the economic effects of global warming, providing an excellent summary of current thinking on this important issue.

This volume takes a close look at the ways in which economies—particularly that of the United States—have adjusted to the challenges climate change poses, including institutional features that help insulate the economy from shocks, new crop varieties, irrigation, flood control, and ways of extending cultivation to new geographic areas.

Mendelsohn and Neumann predict that the overall economic impact of global warming on the U.S. will be positive, about a 0.2 percent increase in GDP. This includes large positive impacts on agriculture and smaller positive impacts on forestry and recreation.